CHANNING SCENARIO OF HUMAN RESOURCE

MANAGEMENT
INTRODUCTION:
Human resource management is a process of bringing people and organizations
together so that the goals of each other are met. The role of HR manager is shifting from that
of a protector and screener to the role of a planner and change agent. Personnel directors are
the new corporate heroes. The today focus in business is personnel. Nowadays it is not
possible to show a good financial or operating report unless your personnel relations are in
order. The major purpose of HRM is to increase and improve the productive contribution of
personnel to the organization in more ethical, social, and administratively responsible way.
This purpose emerged from commonly called industrial relations, personnel administration,
industrial psychology and personal management. Research shows that its aim is to create a
whole organizational culture that binds workers to the companys objectives with full
professional commitment, integration, and quality work.
The 21st century brings with it enormous opportunities but also enormous pressure, if
the companies will not improve the productivity of the people and treat them human being
which are the vital objects of all the economic activities leading towards industrial
development. Now there is worldwide harmony on human resource being one of the major
means of increasing efficiency, productivity and prosperity of the firm.
Over the years, highly skilled and knowledge based jobs are increasing while low
skilled jobs are decreasing. This calls for future skill mapping through proper HRM
initiatives. Organizations are also witnessing a change in systems, management cultures and
philosophy due to the global alignment of Indian organizations. There is a need for multi skill
development.
Role of HRM is becoming all the more important. With the increase in competition,
locally or globally, organizations must become more adaptable, resilient, agile, and customer
-focused to succeed. And within this change in environment, the HR professional has to
evolve to become a strategic partner, an employee sponsor or advocate, and a change mentor
within the organization. In order to succeed, HR must be a business driven function with a
thorough understanding of the organizations big picture and be able to influence key
decisions and policies. In general, the focus of todays HR Manager is on strategic personnel
retention and talents development. HR professionals will be coaches, counselors, mentors,
and succession planners to help motivate organizations members and their loyalty. The HR
manager will also promote and fight for values, ethics, beliefs, and spirituality within their
organizations, especially in the management of workplace diversity.

NEW TRENDS IN INTERNATIONAL HRM:

International HRM places greater emphasis on a number of responsibilities and functions
such as relocation, orientation and translation services to help employees adapt to a new and
different environment outside their own country.
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a. Selection of employees requires careful evaluation of the personal characteristics

of the candidate and his/her spouse.
b. Training and development extends beyond information and orientation training to
include sensitivity training and field experiences that will enable the manager to
understand cultural differences better. Managers need to be protected from career
development risks, re-entry problems and culture shock.
c. To balance the pros and cons of home country and host country evaluations,
performance evaluations should combine the two sources of appraisal information.
d. Compensation systems should support the overall strategic intent of the
organization but should be customized for local conditions.
e. In many European countries Germany for one, law establishes representation.
Organizations typically negotiate the agreement with the unions at a national
level. In Europe it is more likely for salaried employees and managers to be
unionized.
HR MANAGERS SHOULD TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE FOLLOWING ASPECTS
TO ENSURE SUCCESS:
a. Use workforce skills and abilities in order to exploit environmental opportunities
and neutralize threats.
b. Employ innovative reward plans that recognize employee contributions
c. Indulge in continuous quality improvement through TQM and HR contributions
like training, development, counseling, etc
d. Utilize people with distinctive capabilities
e. Decentralize operations and rely on self -managed teams to deliver goods in
difficult times e.g. Motorola is famous for short product development cycles. It
has quickly commercialized ideas from its research labs.
f. Lay off workers in a smooth way explaining facts to unions, workers and other
affected groups
HR MANAGERS TODAY ARE FOCUSING ATTENTION ON THE FOLLOWINGS:
a) Policies-HR policies based on trust, openness, equity and consensus.
b) Motivation-Create conditions in which people are willing to work with zeal, initiative
and enthusiasm; make people feel like winners.
c) Relations -Fair treatment of people for healthy work -place relations.
d) Change agent-Prepare workers to accept technological changes by clarifying doubts.
e) Quality Consciousness-Commitment to quality in all aspects of personnel
administration will ensure success.
Due to the new trends in HR, the HR manager should treat people as resources, reward them
equitably, and integrate their aspirations with corporate goals through suitable HR policies.
OTHER TRENDS AND CHALLENGES FACED BY HRM:
WORKPLACE DIVERSITY: The dimensions of workplace diversity include, but are not
limited to: age, ethnicity, ancestry, gender, physical abilities/qualities, race, sexual
orientation, educational background, geographic location, income, marital status, military
experience, religious beliefs, parental status, and work experience.
The challenge of workplace diversity refers to the fact that the future success of any
organizations relies on the ability to manage a diverse body of talent that can bring innovative
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ideas, perspectives and views to their work. The challenge and problems faced of workplace
diversity can be turned into a strategic organizational asset if an organization is able to
capitalize on this melting pot of diverse talents. With the mixture of talents of diverse cultural
backgrounds, genders, ages and lifestyles, an organization can respond to business
opportunities more rapidly and creatively, especially in the global arena which must be one of
the important organizational goals to be attained. More importantly, if the organizational
environment does not support diversity broadly, one risks losing talent to competitors.
This is especially true for multinational companies (MNCs) who have operations on a
global scale and employ people of different countries, ethical and cultural backgrounds. Thus,
a HR manager needs to be mindful and may employ a Think Global, Act Local approach in
most circumstances. Many local HR managers have to undergo cultural based Human
Resource Management training to further their abilities to motivate a group of professional
that are highly qualified but culturally diverse. Furthermore, the HR professional must assure
the local professionals that these foreign talents are not a threat to their career advancement.
In many ways, the effectiveness of workplace diversity management is dependent on the
skillful balancing act of the HR manager.
TALENT MANAGEMENT: Talent management refers to the process of developing and
integrating new workers, developing and keeping current workers and attracting highly
skilled workers to work for your company. Talent management is a process that emerged in
the 1990s and continues to be adopted, as more companies come to realize that their
employees talents and skills drive their business success. These companies develop plans and
processes to track and manage their employee talent, including the following:
a. Attracting and recruiting qualified candidates with competitive backgrounds
b. Managing and defining competitive salaries
c. Training and development opportunities
d. Performance management processes
e. Retention programs
f. Promotion and transitioning
Talent management is also known as HCM (Human Capital Management), HRIS (HR
Information Systems) or HRMS (HR Management Systems), and HR Modules. Companies
that are engaged in talent management (Human Capital Management) are strategic and
deliberate in how they source, attract, select, train, develop, retain, promote, and move
employees through the organization. This term also incorporates how companies drive
performance at the individual level (performance management). The term talent management
means different things to different people. To some it is about the management of high -worth
individuals or "the talented" whilst to others it is about how talent is managed generally -i.e.
on the assumption that all people have talent which should be identified and liberated.
ORGANIZING TALENTS STRATEGICALLY: Many companies are now realizing the
advantages of a diverse workplace. As more and more companies are going global in their
market expansions either physically or virtually (for example, E commerce - related
companies), there is a necessity to employ diverse talents to understand the various niches of
the market. For example, when China was opening up its markets and exporting their
products globally in the late 1980s, the Chinese companies (such as Chinas electronic giants
such as Haier) were seeking the marketing expertise of Singaporeans. This is because
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Singapores marketing talents were able to understand the local China markets relatively well
(almost 75% of Singaporeans are of Chinese descent) and as well as being attuned to the
markets in the West due to Singapores open economic policies and English language
abilities. With this trend in place, a HR Manager must be able to organize the pool of diverse
talents strategically for the organization. He She must consider how a diverse workforce can
enable the company to attain new markets and other organizational goals in order to harness
the full potential of workplace diversity.
CONTROL AND MEASURE RESULTS: A HR Manager must conduct regular
organizational assessments on issues like pay, benefits, work environment, management and
promotional opportunities to assess the progress over the long term. There is also a need to
develop appropriate measuring tools to measure the impact of diversity initiatives at the
organization through organization -wide feedback surveys and other methods.
Without proper control and evaluation, some of these diversity initiatives may just
fizzle out, without resolving any real problems that may surface due to workplace diversity.
MOTIVATIONAL APPROACHES: Workplace motivation can be defined as the influence
that makes us do things to achieve organizational goals: this is a result of our individual needs
being satisfied (or met) so that we are motivated to complete organizational tasks effectively.
As these needs vary from person to person, an organization must be able to utilize different
motivational tools to encourage their employees to put in the required effort and increase
productivity for the company.
EXECUTIVE INFORMATION SYSTEMS: Executive Information System (EIS) is the
most common term used for the unified collections of computer hardware and software that
track the essential data of a business' daily performance and present it to managers as an aid
to their planning and decision making. With an EIS in place, a company can track
inventory, sales, and receivables, compare today's data with historical patterns. In addition, an
EIS will aid in spotting significant variations from "normal" trends almost as soon as it
develops, giving the company the maximum amount of time to make decisions and
implement required changes to put your business back on the right track.
CONCLUSION: In short, the early practices of jobs forecasting succession planning has
broadened into a concern with establishing a more explicit linkage between human resource
planning and the larger organization strategy and business planning of the organization.
Moreover the idea of selection, training, performance appraisal and compensation decisions
being heavenly- centred on the role of individual employee, with their details of job
description, has guided that effective team working and participative decisions are playing
important roles to achieve the effective performance in business organization.
In conclusion, still there is a strong contention and race of struggle to take the lead in
the academic and professional field but obviously only time will fill which of these and other
possible rival scenarios will offer more accurate description of the reality in future. The new
technological change, downsizing, right sizing and privatization management can also play
role for future developments/trends and accepts the challenges of the future.
REFERENCE:
1.David A Decenzo and Stephen P Robbinson, Human Resource Management, Johm Wiley &
Sons (Asia) Pvt. Ltd, 2003, 7th Edition
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2.Dwivedi R S,Human Resource Personnel Management in Indian Enterprises, Ashok

Galgotia for Galgotia Publishing Company, New Delhi, 2002
3. Eugene Mc Kenna and Nic Beech, Human Resource Management a Concise Analysis,
Pearson Education Limited, England, 2002
4. Gary Dessler, Human Resource Management, Pearson Education (Singapore) Pvt., Ltd,.
New Delhi, 2003, 8th Edition
5. Ian Breadwell and Leen Holden, (Human Resource Management a contemporary
approach, Pearson Education Limited, Great Britain, 2001
6. John Ivancevich, Human Resource Management, Tata Mc Graw Hill Publishing Company
Limited, Delhi, 2003
7. Luisr Gomez Mejia and David B Balkin and Robert L. Cardy. Managing Human
Resource Management, PHI Publication.